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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: How much can you legally copy?
  • Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:49:05 -0600


Russ wrote
> Thanks, Toby, for your contribution to this issue.

And thanks to you, Russ, for the very nice review of relevant copyright law,
and intelligent annotating of my earlier post.

One question that comes up for teachers and others is: How much of someone
else's work is it permissible to copy for classroom use? Most permaculture
teachers have copied work of Mollison's or articles from magazines to
distribute to their students. One guiding principle of "fair use" is that it
must not deprive the copyright holder of income from their work. I looked
into how much copying is considered "fair use" and offer it to those who are
interested. These are guidelines (based on legal cases) from the US
Copyright Office, Circular 21, "Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by
Educators and Librarians." The url is http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

The guidelines are probably similar to those of the other signatory nations
to the Berne Convention (Oz, NZ, UK, etc).

"A single copy may be made of any of the following
by or for a teacher at his or her individual request for
his or her scholarly research or use in teaching or
preparation to teach a class:
A. A chapter from a book;
B. An article from a periodical or newspaper;
C. A short story, short essay or short poem,
whether or not from a collective work;
D. A chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon or
picture from a book, periodical, or newspaper;"

"Multiple copies (not to exceed in any event more
than one copy per pupil in a course) may be made by
or for the teacher giving the course for classroom use
or discussion; provided that:
A. The copying meets the tests of brevity and
spontaneity as defined below; and,
B. Meets the cumulative effect test as defined below;
and,
C. Each copy includes a notice of copyright

Definitions

Brevity
(ii) Prose: (a) Either a complete article, story or es-say
of less than 2,500 words, or (b) an excerpt from
any prose work of not more than 1,000 words or 10%
of the work, whichever is less, but in any event a mini-mum
of 500 words.
(iii) Illustration: One chart, graph, diagram, draw-ing,
cartoon or picture per book or per periodical issue.

III. Prohibitions as to I and II Above
Notwithstanding any of the above, the following
shall be prohibited:

(A) Copying shall not be used to create or to replace
or substitute for anthologies, compilations or
collective works. Such replacement or substitution
may occur whether copies of various works or ex-cerpts
therefrom are accumulated or reproduced and
used separately.
(B) There shall be no copying of or from works intended
to be ³consumable² in the course of study or
of teaching. These include workbooks, exercises,
standardized tests and test booklets and answer
sheets and like consumable material.
(C) Copying shall not:
(a) substitute for the purchase of books, publishers¹
reprints or periodicals;
(b) be directed by higher authority;
(c) be repeated with respect to the same item by
the same teacher from term to term.
(D) No charge shall be made to the student beyond
the actual cost of the photocopying."

Spontaneity
(i) The copying is at the instance and inspiration of
the individual teacher, and
(ii) The inspiration and decision to use the work
and the moment of its use for maximum teaching effectiveness
are so close in time that it would be unreasonable
to expect a timely reply to a request for permission.

Cumulative Effect
(i) The copying of the material is for only one
course in the school in which the copies are made.
(ii) Not more than one short poem, article, story,
essay or two excerpts may be copied from the same
author, nor more than three from the same collective
work or periodical volume during one class term.
(iii) There shall not be more than nine instances of
such multiple copying for one course during one class
term."







  • How much can you legally copy?, Toby Hemenway, 07/25/2000

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